Spring – 春天 – chūn tiān
The temperature is rising, and Spring is finally here!
Lantern Festival – 元宵節 – Yuán xiāo jié
Lantern Festival or 元宵節 is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month in the lunar calendar. This is not to be confused with Moon Festival, which is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar. Traditioanlly, 元宵節 marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebration as it’s the first full moon of the new year. Once again, families gather together for one last time before returning to work and “normal” life. During the gathering, everyone is to enjoy some 湯圓, tāng yuán, made out of glutinous rice. As you have seen from our previous posts, Chinese people believe in symbolic food, the circular shape of the tang yuan reminds family members to stay together and be united. So don’t forget to eat your tang yuan on 2/28 this year!
Happy New Year Everyone!
We took a week off, following the traditions and to fight all the evil spirits and not wanting to bring any bad luck. Right! Actually, kids were off last week, and combined with all the snow and Chinese New Year celebrations, we were too exhausted to blog. 
During the week off, I ate a lot of gāo. The literally translation is cake, but most gāo that I ate was not the sweet ones that most people are accustomed to. Chinese people eat these gāo a lot during Chinese New Year. The word cake, or gāo, sounds the same as the word “High” or 高. Therefore, eating a lot of gāo has a symbolic meaning of raising oneself higher.
Some of the 糕 gāo our family likes to eat during Chinese New Year are:
Radish Cake – 蘿蔔糕 – This is not a sweet kind of cake, and a lot of dim sum places have them on a regular basis too. It is delicious and it is usually cut into rectangular pieces and pan fried before serving. My boys love them! I found this recipe from Tasty Treats, check it out.- Sticky Rice Cake – 年糕 – This literally means year cake, and my parents only make them during Chinese New Year. We
make the Cantonese version, which is sweetened with brown sugar. It is also pan fried before serving. My Dad makes a really good one, I will have to make sure I put that into my family recipe blog. - Taro Cake – 芋頭糕 – Very similar to radish cake, except the change of taro instead of radish. It offers a different texture than the radish cake, slightly denser. Here’s a good recipe from Chow Times.
Good Fortune – 福 – fú
The Fú Character may be one of the most popular Chinese New Year symbols for modern Chinese people. The Chinese character Fú means fortune.
It can be posted either in normal position or upside down like in the above picture. Why post it upside down? In Chinese language, the character “upside down” is pronounced exactly the same as the character “arrive”. So this is a homophone rhetoric to mean “Fortune arrives”.
Reunion Dinner – 團圓飯 – tuán yuán fan
This literally means “Reunion Rice”, it is the big dinner Chinese people eat on New Year’s Eve. It is considered one of the most important events for Chinese New Year. It is translated as Reunion Meal, as all the family members would make a special effort to make this dinner, so that the family is once again united before the New Year. It is a symbol of strength and unity of the family.
As mentioned from my previous post, I have a big family. Even now that I am married, I still make a point to go back to my parent’s house for this dinner. This becomes a juggling art, as we will also need to have dinner with my in-laws as well. We will usually have an extra early dinner with my in-laws, then head to my parent’s house for a second meal, and then a sleepover. This is definitely the beauty and the difficulty of having all family members relatively close by. I am sure this doesn’t sound all that unfamiliar with most of you, as Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners are probably handled in a similar manner. It’s crazy, but it is all good time.
Red Envelope – 紅包 – hóng bāo
紅包 is the quintessential item for any Chinese New Year celebration. 紅包 is a small little red envelope, decorated with good luck Chinese characters or symbols. It is used to place money and given out to kids. Traditionally, married adults will give 紅包 to all the kids that great them on the New Year. There are many differnt kinds of red envelopes these days, so you can really have a lot of fun picking out the best one. This design is cute for the kids and a little more contempary, it also has the tiger, so perfect for the new year.
Happy New Year Everyone!!!!
Here at My Panda Paws, we had a wonderful year. We started this blog, and received many supports from our readers all over the world. We started our website, which received tremendous responses from our customers, parents, and teachers. We want you to know that we couldn’t have done it without you!
We learned everything and anything including shipping, e-commerce, graphic designs, writing blogs, and much much more. It has been a beautiful journey. We are taking all of what we learned, and all the boo boos, and making it better tomorrow.
Happy New Year!!! Enjoy the rest of your holidays!
P.S. One major advantage of being Chinese, the holidays are not over until Chinese New Year. Stay tuned, this year’s Chinese New Year is late, on Feb 14th!
Love,
Debbie and Dotty
My Panda Paws
聖誕快樂 – Merry Christmas – Shèng dàn kuài lè
Happy Holidays to all of you!!!!
Birthday – 生日 – shēng rì
Sunday is little Dumpling’s birthday, my little baby is going to be 3! I can’t believe it! He was just a little baby, and what happened?
Anyway, my father called on Thursday and told me that it was his Chinese birthday according to the Lunar calendar, so we snuck in a little Chinese tradition in his dinner on Thursday. I grew up eating chicken on my birthday, my mom would always get a nice, fresh chicken for me. 
I never really understand why, it’s just the way it is. Chicken is a traditional dish that Chinese use to celebrate the honored people, or for special occasion. Anyway, I didn’t have time to prepare for a whole, fresh, steam chicken, so I supplemented by making baked chicken drumsticks. He likes them, and I felt that I did my Chinese part, yeah!
Happy Birthday to my not-so-little baby.
